Tag Archives: money

Hey Wonkers! It is Sunday, and whew, what a week we had! Your Wonkette got lost (broken because bad server was bad), but then was found (fixed with a shiny new server!), was blind but now it sees! And you all made that possible! If you have not had a chance, please read our heartfelt THANK YOU for all the moneys you gave us to help us in our time of need.
Read more on Sass-Mouth Barack Obama Sasses The Republicans, Sassily. Your Weekly Top Ten….

The Deliverance cast members who own that Indiana fag-hatin’ pizza hole called Memories raised over $840,000 in bigot money on GoFundMe, for taking the bold stand that, were a gay or lesbian couple to visit them and say “please, our dream is to serve your shitty pizza to our wedding guests,” they would refuse, because God Hates Fags. You will be glad (depending on your value for “glad”) to know that they aren’t just going to stick all that money up their butts; they plan to follow Jesus’s command to help the needy and spread the wealth.
Read more on Pizza Bigots Sharing Dough With Florist Bigot, Like Good Gay-Hating Jesus Would Do…

Stephen Colbert is torn, poor fellow. On the one hand, he says, he is “America’s most prominent Catholic.” Then again, he is also “America’s foremost capitalist. I love the invisible hand of the market so much I let it get to third base.” Ah, but there’s the conflict. That darn Pope Francis guy wants to cramp his style, with all that anti-capitalist, “don’t be worshiping money” cruelty of his.
Read more on Stephen Colbert Has A Few Words For This Marxist Pope Guy (Video)…

Pat Robertson just enjoys being Pat Robertson, and he doesn’t care who knows it. And by golly, he sure does admire how people of the Hebrew persuasion are so darn good at making money — it really is something to be admired, not a shameful stereotype. And so it makes perfect sense that he’d have a warm welcome for guest Daniel Lapin, a rightwing rabbi, who appeared on Monday’s 700 Club to flog his new book about what Robertson called the “ancient Jewish wisdom” that helps your Jewy types to grab that cash with both hands and make a stash:
“What is it about Jewish people that make them prosper financially? You almost never find Jews tinkering with their cars on the weekends or mowing their lawns. That’s what Daniel Lapin says and there’s a very good reason for that, and it lies within the business secrets of the Bible.”
It’s that special Bible magic that lets Jews spend their weekends, as Robertson exclaims later, “polishing diamonds, not fixing cars!”
And by golly, home viewer, maybe if you listen very carefully, you can learn a thing or two from this Jew fella! And send a generous contribution to keep this ministry on the air, of course. Read more on Pat Robertson Puts The ‘Jew’ In ‘Jeweler’…

Unloved money brute Lawrence “Larry” Summers will not be your new Ben Bernanke after withdrawing his name from consideration for Federal Reserve Chairman on Sunday. Mainly this is because humans are hard-wired to distrust men named Larry, but there were other factors, like:
Four of the twelve Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee have already said they won’t vote for him, so he’d needed GOP support to get out of committee, which is always fun;
He helped create the regulatory environment that led to the Great Recession with his full-throated (no pun intended) advocacy of repealing Glass-Steagall and continuing the largely unregulated, over-the-counter exchange of derivatives;
Along those same lines, he is very cozy with much-loathed banks like Citigroup;
He is widely held to be an asshole;
He once pretty much out of nowhere said women are less biologically fit to do science, which is not even true, and seriously, why even say that?
Read more on Summers Vs. Warren Banking Committee Cage Match Canceled As Larry Summers Craps Out…

Surely you Wonketteers have heard the librul media and members of Congress crowing about the new student loan bill, which is apparently not only a great deal for students but is also significant because it demonstrates that Congress is capable of passing something on a bipartisan basis.
Everybody wins: Congress looks good! The new bill doesn’t add to the deficit! And students’ rates will fluctuate with the market so now students have EVEN MORE skin in the game! USA USA!
Here, let us take a closer look at the crappy deal that everyone is so excited about. Read more on Student Loan Bill Lubes Up At Least Before Screwing Students…

Sen. John McCain would just like to reassure strippers across this great nation that they have nothing to fear from the bill he’s supporting that would phase out $1 bills and replace them with dollar coins, because maybe instead of getting pelted with coins, they’ll still get bills, just in larger denominations, so yay strippers, and empowerment. Strippers getting more money counts as empowerment, right? [Editrix note: Fuck you, and also, yes.] Read more on John McCain Promises Huge Tip For Strippers…

What a tempting offer for our nation’s cadre of experienced lawyers: work for the Justice Department, reviewing applications for wiretaps in major federal criminal investigations. Probably this is pretty easy, given (as we’ve recently learned) that there is no reason NOT to ever wiretap! So if you want something a little more challenging, perhaps you can serve as a special attorney in the Office of Enforcement Operations.
But wait! There’s more! Not only could you maybe work for the Justice Department for a year in either of these important positions, you can do it in exchange for absolutely no money! Yes! That’s right! You will get paid in Experience, which, like Exposure, is even better than money! Read more on Justice Department Now Paying Experienced Lawyers With Exposure Bucks, Whore Diamonds…

Baby-having time is a time of mixed emotions for most families. This is because they are excited about becoming parents (or becoming parents again, as the case may be), worried about preparing in time for the baby (or babies) and sad about the fact that Americans spend more per baby than just about any industrialized country but get poorer outcomes. See, American babies cost anywhere from $4,000 to $45,000 for a complication-free delivery, depending on which insurance company you have.
Our nephew, for example, cost around $7,000 in copays and $30,000 in hospital bills, making him a very expensive baby who is only appreciating with every doctor visit. Can any of you beat that? Probably, which is sad.
Anyway, let’s catch up with this via the New York Times, which accidentally filed this article in the “Health” section rather than where it really belongs, the “Money” section: Read more on American Babies Cost Three Times as Much as European Babies, For Freedom…

Are you a writer what got no job? Then you will not want to read the following, in which we hire ANOTHER person, as it will probably make you want to eat your own liver. And livers are not like hearts or kidneys. A liver is an organ YOU ACTUALLY NEED!
Last week, we told you that — thanks to you, the loyal Wonker — we were creating ONE ENTIRE JOB. (Actual picture, not kidding, of Doktor Zoom at the link.)
Last week we also told you that we had seen a hilariously dumb panel about monetizing content for the web, and really their only advice was that, like Politico and Andrew Sullivan, you should charge people to look at your shit. WELL WE SAID NO THANK YOU. Too many of our readers are poor and homeless and covered in scabies and sadness for us to put up paywalls. NO PAYWALL CAN HOLD YOUR WONKET! But we did finally (finally) and thanks to the help from one ShyPixel, put up our annoying little “send us money” noodge. And did you? IN FACT YOU DID.
So fuck it, we’re hiring Snipy now too. (Not pictured above.) Read more on Screw It, We Are Just Hiring Everyone Now…

This is not a music blog! This is a mommyblog recipe-hub sci-blog literary salon #WARBLOG! What are we even doing writing about music? WE KNOW NOTHING OF MUSIC! Well tell it to Greil Marcus, who once said we were one of his favorite music writers, obviously because he had a Rick Perry Moment and couldn’t think of any other music writers in the whole wide world, oops. So now that that is out of the way, let us talk about Rocket Science, because J. Koester’s papa is proud of him and bought him a post for just that purpose! See that link right there? That is the free download to the whole album, because of how J. Koester is a cool guy.
So, let us begin. Are you a nerd? Do you like nerd stuff, and science, and sex robots and white-man-rap and Abba mixed with David Bowie and Lemon Jelly and maybe Shakespeare’s Sister and Disco Eponine and concept albums? Then Rocket Science might be for you! Do you think those things are “goofy”? Then Rocket Science might not be for you probably! Read more on Sponsored! This Proud Dad Paid Us Sweet Cash Money To Listen To His Son’s Awesome Album For Nerds!…

Good news everyone! We have received an invoice for the Iraq war and it is only going to cost us around $6 trillion American dollars. Now, this may SOUND like a high price tag, but let’s keep it in perspective by remembering that we liberated the Iraqis using freedom bombs, and the cost of that is pretty much priceless. We also liberated the Iraqis from electricity, water, and antiquities, so looks like we’ve done a pretty good job, amiright? Read more on Iraq War Totally Worth Its New Six-Trillion-Dollar Price Tag…

Ha! Ha! Ha! Here, let us enjoy this fun exchange between a freelance journalist and a representative of the Atlantic, wherein Global Editor Olga Khazan asks a freelance journalist if he would mind, you know, giving her a thousand words? To post on the Atlantic’s website? Which — in case you don’t know — reaches about 13 million readers per month? Oh, and could he by any chance do it for free? Well, not for FREE per se, he will be paid in Exposure, which is almost as good as being paid in actual money. You see, even though the Atlantic reaches 13 million readers per month, they cannot possibly afford to pay him money for his work, that would be SILLY.
Read more on Here, Let the Atlantic Explain At You About Why They Do Not Pay People For Their Work…

Your Wonkette had to go to the hospital about a year ago for a two hour long procedure. We had a good friend come pick us up, and as we left, she indicated a desire to take the brown paper bag of basic first aid supplies that the doctor had left for us to bring home for after care. DO NOT TAKE THE BROWN PAPER BAG, we yelled. DO NOT TAKE IT! But our friend was worried, so she took the brown paper bag anyway, and we were charged $20 for a bunch of gauze and a couple Tylenol. Whatever, this was small potatoes, since the entire bill was over $2500 for this two hour procedure, and it was tough to get particularly excited over $20, but still, it was the principle of the thing!
And in the grand scheme of it all, we got off easy! $2500 for a two hour procedure? And we got to pay for it a month or two later, after it was all over? Pfft, we had hit the jackpot! Here, let Time magazine tell you about all the ways you could suffer at the hands of our corrupt health care system:
Read more on Time Magazine Helpfully Explains Why A Quick Visit To The ER Costs As Much As A Semester At Harvard…

There was a hilarious David Carr story in the New York Times that we missed in December, about this one-man website The Wirecutter. According to Carr, “Mr. Lam’s revenue is low, about $50,000 a month, but it’s doubling every quarter, enough to pay his freelancers, invest in the site and keep him in surfboards.” Hahahaha, GOOD ONE, DAVID CARR!
The Wirecutter’s traffic, according to this story, is about two-thirds the traffic that we garner here at Your Wonket. And if we were making the “low” revenues of $50,000 a month, we would hire four people at $70k plus bennies and still be THE RICHEST LADY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND LEAVE ALL OUR MONEY TO OUR DOG. We would not even be working a second job, the papers for which have gone ungraded for seven weeks of this 10-week quarter! Fuck we do not want to grade those. Give us money.
But we figure, since it is a lovely Presidents Day slow news day, with stories out there like “Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns to retire” (WHO?), this is a fantastic time to help you suss out how to help us get paid without ending up in CLICK FRAUD JAIL. Read more on Help Us Help You Help Us!…

Good news everyone! We are relieved, we are SO relieved, because as of Saturday, there are criminal penalties (including jail time and a fine of up to $500,000) for unlocking your phone so you can switch cel phone providers.
Is this an oversight, you might be wondering? A mere loophole in an otherwise sound piece of legislation? Maybe there is a good explanation!
No, of course there isn’t, this is America, it took a special edict [PDF] from the Librarian of Congress to decide that fines and criminal penalties–including jail time and a fine up to $500,000 — applies to cel phone unlocking.
Read more on Millions of Americans Can Breathe Sigh Of Relief Now That We Are Safe From Unlocked Phones…